"Lift Off 10 : bite-size" and "Lift Off 17 : our own stunned heads"

by Stephen Bett

Lift Off 10 : bite-size

                       (after Olson)

 

Was it gurry

or offal?

 

 

A bird at sea,

surely

 

 

Gulls all over the

edges of my

childhood

 

 

Never expected

to be one

 

 

The scraps she

throws me

the innards

of a bruised

woman

 

 

A Borderliner

doesn’t have

a clue what

she’s hurling

 

 

It’s always

too big for

bite-size

 

 

And it’s always

filled with a

jelly of raw

hurt

 

 

Lift Off 17 : our own stunned heads

 

This bird was

blindsided

in a cartoon

sky

 

 

Feathers blown

out in all

directions

floating

ground-

ward

 

 

Like a rain

of fluffy

mass

abandon

 

 

And then

fine

white

snow

fall

 

 

On the

tops of

all

creation

 

 

Especially

on our

own

stunned

heads

 

 

Stephen Bett

Stephen Bett is a widely and internationally published Canadian poet with 26 books in print (from BlazeVOX, Chax, Spuyten Duyvil, & others). His personal papers are archived in the “Contemporary Literature Collection” at Simon Fraser University. His website is StephenBett.com.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Tuesday, March 28, 2017 - 23:27